Update on the Kabul Zoo Story

The principal challenge we faced last year in Kabul centered on maintaining the momentum required to complete the many projects funded through gifts through the N.C. Zoo Society. These projects would flourish when we sent a staff person in to supervise the work but the progress would slow down when the outside supervisor left.
 
Even so, much was accomplished. To date, funds from the Zoo Society have improved every resident animal’s enclosure: both enlarging the animals’ living spaces and improving the appearance of the exhibits. Funds also added climbing structures and other furniture to the exhibits that house animals who have the most pressing needs for enrichment items. Staff has also erected numerous standoff barriers to discourage visitors from feeding or teasing the animals.

The Municipality of Kabul has assumed full responsibility for paying the zoo’s utility bills, employee salaries and animal food costs. To help ensure the sustainability of this current system, we have sent a N.C. Zoo employee to Kabul to help zoo officials there create a business plan that will align the Kabul Zoo’s annual operating costs with its earned income. This business plan will help the Kabul Zoo reduce its need for outside aid and will help  give the Kabul Zoo’s staff the skills, the initiative and the business acumen necessary to manage a zoo that is both educational and self-supporting.

We expect to encounter some bumps along this road to financial independence. Thirty years of war and the horror of the Taliban’s totalitarian regime inflicted emotional and economical traumas that will take time to heal. The aftershocks of war continue to arouse despair and fear in even the most able of people, so one of our biggest challenges is to help the staff muster the courage and the skills they need to mould a successful future.

These problems are further compounded by Muslim culture, which views animal caretaking as a less-than-respectable occupation. This stigma keeps zoo salaries low–and tends to attract employees who are illiterate and who may require strong supervision to carry out their work.

In this final phase of assisting the Kabul Zoo, we decided to face these personnel challenges head-on by sending in an active and competent N.C. Zoo employee to work at the Kabul Zoo for the better part of a year.  This employee is providing consistent training and encouragement to the caretaking staff —clearly delineating the standards of animal care that must be maintained.  And, we have also charged our employee with shoring up the Kabul Zoo’s management staff—and the Municipality’s supervising officials—to convince them that the zoo caretakers can learn to maintain acceptable standards and should be expected to do so.  Particularly, however,  the N.C. Zoo employee will help Kabul Zoo leaders learn to supervise the staff while also laying out sound fiscal plans for the zoo’s future.

When we first began helping the zoo several years ago, the Kabul Municipality and Kabul University jostled each other to take ownership of the zoo. Originally, we supported the view that the University should supervise the zoo, citing its academic strengths as well as the distractions the Municipality would certainly face as it wrested with the problems of healing a poor, dilapidated, and war-poxed city.

Since the city took charge, we have maintained good relationships with Municipality leaders, this despite the high employee turnover levels that continue to plague both city and zoo senior staffs – up to and including a change in the Kabul Zoo’s Director.
Fortunately, we have also managed to build a promising relationship with the Veterinary Department of the University.

American, Italian and other outside veterinarians are assisting the University Veterinary Department and are in the process of building a collaborative that, we hope, will evolve into an animal welfare and husbandry advisory group for the Kabul Zoo. These advisors would not supplant the governance authority of the Municipality but would provide the technical advice and leadership that the Kabul Zoo must heed if it hopes to maintain acceptable standards of animal care.

In the meantime, the N.C. Zoo employee,  Brendan Whittington-Jones, has spent most of this year in Kabul, overseeing repair and renovation projects, building a dialog with Municipality officials and other Kabul leaders and encouraging the zoo staff to adopt and maintain high standards of animal care and park maintenance. (Mr. Whittington-Jones is a South African wildlife ranger who came to our attention when he spent 15 months in Baghdad helping the zoo animals after the United States captured the city.  His work earned him the respect of U.S. Army officers and led us to hire him to help us in Kabul.)

We are very happy to report that the Kabul Zoo has become, by far, the city’s most popular destination for families celebrating the Muslim weekend (Fridays). The power of the zoo’s impact on the people of Kabul can be heard in the telling comment of an American veterinarian who helps at the zoo. He said, “The zoo is the only place in Kabul where I consistently see children smiling.”

Obviously, the time will come soon when we will have to hand the Kabul Zoo back to the Afghans. We want to ease that transition by leaving the zoo in the best condition —and with the most optimistic future—that we can manage. By making the Kabul Zoo a reputable, flourishing institution, we hope to build even greater support among resident Afghans and ex-patriots who see the zoo’s potential for educating children and enriching families. Certainly, we want to give the Kabul Zoo the training and the resources it needs to be accepted as an active, professional member of the Indian Sub-continent Zoo Association—the group in the best position to help the Kabul Zoo continue to thrive into the future.

Below, I have included some recent photos that show a number of the improvements that have been made to the Kabul Zoo.

David M. Jones
Director
N.C. Zoological Pak
They include:




A.    The enclosure for Persian Gazelles (shown in the picture) and Spotted Deer.







B.    The Lion enclosure, with resting platforms.


C.    Enlarged and re-painted aviaries and cages with public stand-off barriers to prevent teasing.


D.    One of the larger aviaries attached to the refurbished birdhouse containing a variety of birds of prey.

E    One particularly gratifying part of this progress has been the number of school classes now beginning to participate in education programs.